


My Lord Count

by Philomytha



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, F/M, Ghosts, Hallucinations, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-12
Updated: 2010-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-12 12:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/pseuds/Philomytha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the same wine they'd served that night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Lord Count

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Милорд граф](https://archiveofourown.org/works/126344) by [jetta_e_rus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jetta_e_rus/pseuds/jetta_e_rus), [Philomytha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/pseuds/Philomytha)



> Written for the Russian ficathon prompt: Aral has a conversation with his dead older brother. How drunk he is is at the discretion of the author.
> 
> My thanks to [Tel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Tel/pseuds/Tel) for beta-reading.

The funeral was over. Aral had done everything a model son and an experienced Barrayaran politician had to do, dealt with every player, said all the right things at the right moments, accepted condolences, spoke his rehearsed words of praise and sorrow in a clear voice. Taken his seat in the Council of Counts. Set a good example to Miles. He'd even cried a little, appropriately among friends. But he hadn't slept. After the funeral, Cordelia had looked at him and announced that they were going to spend a few days in seclusion out here by the long lake.

It had rained earlier, but the skies had cleared at sunset and now it was a fine night, both moons in the sky, mirrored on the lake below the pavilion where he sat. Aral picked up the bottle and squinted at the label. His vision was blurred with wine, but it was simple enough: Vorkosigan Estate, Cabernet Severny, the date and the vintner's signature. Simple, and familiar. There was a reason he had ordered these dusty bottles up from the cellar tonight.

 _"Best year we've had for a while, this," Father said. "It'll be even better after a while in the cellars. All right, Vlad. One glass."_

 _Armsman Laroche poured a modest glass for Vlad, and then, with a glance at Mama, put a splash into Aral's water glass, just enough to tint it pink. Aral took a proud sip, trying not to show that he didn't care for the taste._

 _A few moments later, Armsman Laroche was on the ground with his head blown open, incredibly, horrifically, still alive, his mouth moving in a cry Aral couldn't hear. And Vlad--_   


He poured the last of the wine straight down his throat without tasting it, then threw the bottle hard at the side of the pavilion. It shattered and splintered, but Aral didn't hear the crash.

For a full minute he sat and shivered, cold sweat on his back and a pounding in his chest. Courting flashbacks was insane. Cordelia would scold him for it. Fifty years ought to be long enough to lay ghosts. But he had a new ghost now, the last of his relatives, following wife and son and daughter to the grave at last.

There was another bottle. It took a bit more these days to get him potted enough to talk to his ghosts, and he'd been careful about it throughout the state funeral, knowing how close to the edge he stood. But now he was back home, and he could talk to his family. But they weren't up here.

Aral stumbled to his feet, took the bottle and began to make his way down the hill to the graveyard. He could just see, in the corner of his eye, an armsman lurking at a discreet distance, ready to come forward if my-lord-count should need assistance. My lord count. Aral stopped, balancing himself against a young tree, took a drink and said it aloud. "My lord count. Should have been you, not me."

He had expected that Vlad would be waiting for him in the graveyard the way he'd used to, but instead here he was halfway down the hill, older than Aral remembered him, looking disturbingly like Father, wearing the uniform of the Vorkosigan heir.

"Yes," Vlad said. "It should have." He smiled at Aral, that same gorgeous smile that had attracted attention ever since Aral could remember. "Do you remember that time when Father gave me my first pair of swords? And you wanted to play with them, so I issued you the shorter one as your liege-lord?"

"And I cut down Mama's imported lilies with it, and you told Father it had been your fault. Yes. I thought Father would beat me, I was terrified." He could almost see them, down in the gardens below, the mangled lilies where he'd been fighting with imaginary Cetas, Vlad's voice telling him--telling him--

"And I said that it was my job to protect you, because I was Lord Vorkosigan and you were just Lord Aral." Vlad looked at Aral. "That's what you have to do, when you're Count Vorkosigan. That's what I would have done. But Father grabbed you and not me. Perhaps he did love you better after all."

"I was closer," Aral said, a feeble defence and he knew it. "I was smaller."

"Olivia was smaller, and nobody rescued her." Vlad advanced on him. "I tried to save them all. But you--you didn't save anyone."

Faces rushed through Aral's mind. Irina, that plasma arc to the head. Ges, a knife opening his throat, but it had been Serg who'd destroyed him really, after Aral abandoned him. Padma, the baby, he'd sworn to protect Padma, and instead he'd got him killed. It had been a nerve disruptor, for Vlad, and for young Olivia too. Aral could smell the blast in the air now, and the bitter tang of vomit. He still didn't know who had thrown up that night. It might have been him.

"Go back to the graveyard," he said to Vlad. "I don't want you here. I'm the Count now, you have to obey me."

"You're not the rightful Count," Vlad said. "I would have saved them. I would have made Father proud."

"I made him proud."

"The drunk, the pervert, the leftovers? I've seen all your life. You're barely hanging on by your fingernails."

"I put Gregor on the throne."

"He hates you for it."

"He's alive." Aral took a defiant gulp of the wine.

"You're the second-best."

" _No._ " He took another swallow and reeled the rest of the way down the hill, half running, half falling. Vlad kept pace with him effortlessly. He came up hard against the wall of the graveyard, clambered over it and turned to face Vlad. "I conquered Komarr. I saved the fleet at Escobar. I defeated Vordarian. I outsmarted the Cetas. I held Barrayar together and I made her a better place. I _am_ worthy."

Vlad just stood there, the nerve disruptor burn livid on his forehead, until Aral's protests ran out. Then he said, "You used to put your hands between mine, when we played. You were going to be my stirrup-man, ever-faithful, and I would be the count, the admiral, the regent. I would have got it all right. No massacres, no civil wars. I would have kept my honour."

His shape shifted as he spoke, his heir's uniform changing to dress greens with Admiral's insignia, to the ceremonial robes of the Regent, to the uniform of the Count of House Vorkosigan.

Aral sat abruptly down on the damp grass, his legs buckling. He took a long swallow from the bottle and fell further, flat on his back, cold wet blades of grass against the nape of his neck. "Yes," he said at last. "Yes, yes, yes, you were perfect, you were braver and stronger and cleverer and you tried to fight back and Father wanted you for his heir. It should have been you." His voice choked, he sobbed for two breaths, then glared up at Vlad. "Damn you! Don't you understand? I don't want to be the Count. I never wanted any of it. If you'd ducked faster, if you'd run, if you hadn't tried to fight back... if you hadn't been so perfect, if you had been scared the way I was..."

He rolled over to hide his weeping from Vlad's perfect face, the moons blurring and whirling above him, wet grass whipping his cheeks. But on his other side was the patch of new-dug earth.

"I'm sorry," he said to the clods of Barrayaran soil.

Vlad came walking over to face him again, and then Father was with Vlad, of course Father was with Vlad, an arm around his shoulders. They looked down at him without speaking. More shapes blurred into existence around them. Little Olivia, smiling trustingly at him. Irina and Ges, arm in arm, laughing, their death wounds livid over their Vorrutyer finery. They surrounded him: Padma, the Vorhalas boys, his political officer, Serg, the broken and bleeding Komarrans, his soldiers, all his dead. They circled in closer, not accusing, simply looking at him, nearer and nearer till their blood was falling on him.

"I'm sorry!" he cried, and covered his face with his hands.

"God, you are a mess," Vlad said, but his voice was strangely kind. Aral blinked his eyes open, tried to focus.

"Mama?" he said. He never, never saw his mother, and wasn't sure whether this was mercy or cruelty.

A warm, familiar, gentle laugh. "Hallucinations again?"

It was Cordelia. She sat down beside him in the damp grass. "Who are you talking to?" she asked, as if lying around drunk in graveyards talking to dead people was completely normal.

"Vlad. Father. Everyone. I don't know." Aral wiped a sleeve over his face. "What are you doing here?" For a moment he had an awful fear that Cordelia was another ghost, and he tried to sit up, to look at her properly. She pulled him up, her hands warm, strong, real.

"I couldn't sleep, and Bothari said you were out here," she said. "What's on your mind, love?"

So many things. He looked up at where his dead had been, but Cordelia must have chased them all away. It was just him now. The Count.

"It was never meant to be me," he said. "I shouldn't be the Count."

"You should be who you are," Cordelia said softly. She ran her fingers through his hair, picked out some dead leaves, pulled his head down against her shoulder. "My Aral." She took the bottle from his hand. "Not maple mead," she observed.

"We drank this that night," he said, then realised she hadn't followed him and added, "When--when I was eleven."

"Aral," Cordelia said, and it was her turn to throw the bottle away. It bounced and skittered across the grass, spilling the last dregs of the wine, a libation to the ghosts. "I say this with all the love in the world: you are the most appallingly melodramatic man I've ever met. Come on. You're drunk and wet and freezing. Let's get you inside."

Betans didn't argue with ghosts. Betans were reasonable and practical and strong and sensible, and they always won. Aral tried to obey his Captain, but even with her help, he couldn't walk. Cordelia waved a hand for Bothari, and between them they dragged him back to the house, up the stairs and into their bedroom. Aral let himself be manhandled, feeling a thousand times more drunk in the warmth and light inside.

"I'll take it from here. Thank you, Sergeant."

Aral was left in his bedroom, slumped against his wife. He'd collapse again if she let go, he knew, and it seemed very profound all of a sudden. "I'd fall, if you weren't holding me up," he said.

"Nobody stands on their own, not really," Cordelia said. "We're all clinging to each other. Can you get that tunic off? You look like you've been lying in a mud puddle."

That was so Cordelia, he thought, devastating insight and equally devastating realism. "I love you," he said, and began to wrestle with the tunic. Cordelia sat him on the side of their bed and pulled off his boots, socks and trousers, quickly and efficiently. Time was doing something strange, bounding forward and then pausing for ages on a single moment. He was probably going to pass out soon. "I love you," he said again, because that one was important, especially when Cordelia was taking his clothes off.

"I know. Lie down."

That was easy. Cordelia was taking her own clothes off now, and he forced his eyes to stay open. She climbed into bed next to him and put the light out.

"I'm never going to be good enough for them," he said in her ear.

"You're good enough for me." Cordelia kissed his forehead and tucked herself in against his side. "More than good enough. Ssh, now. It's all right." She caught up his cold hands and chafed them between her own, wonderfully warm and soothing.

"I miss him," he whispered then, even more low, words he had said a dozen times during the funeral but never meant till now. "I keep thinking, I need to talk to Father about that, and then I remember."

Cordelia's only answer was to put her arms around him. He was crying again, he realised, wetting Cordelia's hair, but she didn't seem to mind. The tears seemed to smooth away the most jagged and painful edges of his grief, the tears and Cordelia. It still hurt, but bearably, like a wound cleaned and bandaged, ready to heal. His mind was growing foggier now with wine and grief and exhaustion. Cordelia's hand was circling his back in a slow soothing rhythm. He followed her touch, let it fill his awareness, and slowly drifted off to sleep.


End file.
